


Storybrooke Boarding School for Girls

by shopfront



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Boarding School, Community: ouat_exchange, F/F, Role Reversal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-13
Updated: 2013-01-13
Packaged: 2017-11-25 08:11:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/636878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shopfront/pseuds/shopfront
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Regina stepped through the large oak doors of Storybrooke Boarding School for Girls, she had chills. </p>
<p>A boarding school role reversal fic, where Emma has magic and Regina doesn't know about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Storybrooke Boarding School for Girls

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Anoel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anoel/gifts).



The first time Regina stepped through the large oak doors of Storybrooke Boarding School for Girls, she had chills. Everything around her was beautiful in its pristine detail. The doors were inlaid with metal in curling vines and twisting characters she couldn't read, the ceilings were high, and every door and window around her was outlined in the most exquisitively carved stone she'd ever seen.

"Make me proud, dear," her mother'd said when she dropped Regina at the gate with her suitcases and a firm yet faint smile. "I'm sending you to a great school because I expect great things, don't disappoint me."

"Yes, mother," Regina had replied obediantly as she pulled her bags from the back seat and closed the door. "I'll write-"

She'd leaned towards the window to say goodbye, but quickly had to yank herself backwards to safety as her mother put foot to pedal and pulled away from the curb with a screech of tires.

"... you."

Regina watched the car speed away until it was long out of sight. Then, slowly with weight in her step, she began the slow trek up the winding path to the main school building.  

As she went, she thought there were whispers and giggles among the creaking of the trees, but whenever she stopped to call out there was no answer. So she squared her shoulders and carried on, and when she'd rounded the final bend she'd been rewarded with the breaktaking sight of an old castle come school that was to be her new home.

"Hello?" she called, standing in the foyer with her bags still in the open doorway. "Hello? Is anybody there?"

The only response was the echo of her own voice, so Regina continued meandering down the hall. First she strode with purpose, but the further she went, the slower she walked. As she went she turned in circles with each slow step to take in the astonishing treasures on the walls.

"Careful," a voice whispered in her ear, making her jump and her heart skip a beat, abruptly pulling her out of her daze. 

"Oh my god, you nearly gave me a heart attack," she gasped.

"Boo! You know, you'll run into something doing that if you're not careful."

The girl looked to be about Regina's own age, with messy blonde hair hanging long about her shoulders and her hands buried in her pockets.

"You must be the new girl," she said, after placidly enduring Regina's stare for a moment. "Better come with me, you came in the wrong way."

"Wrong way? How could I have possibly come in the wrong way, this is the only place the road leads to... Wait, my bags!" Regina called, as the girl started to turn away. "They're still back at the door."

"Eh," the girl shrugged one shoulder, turned on one heel and started sauntering. "Someone will sort them out."

Regina hesitated, looking from the girl's retreating back to the silhouette of her bags in the doorway and back again. But she only had a moment to hesitate, as the other girl starting picking up speed, a swing in her step; so with a frustrated grumble, she left them behind.

"You still didn't tell me why this was the wrong way. Explain," she commanded imperiously, once she'd fallen into step. 

The girl ducked and weaved around corners and down halls, Regina close at heel until she felt dizzy and entirely turned around. "Nobody else stops when the road does."

"... what on _earth_ does that mean? Who wouldn't stop when they run out of road, that's the most absurd thing I've ever heard!"

The girl laughed, and the sound made Regina feel jittery. It was loud and carefree, sparkling in Regina's ears like light through frosted glass and completely at odds with the stern eyes and brisk voice.

They eventually stopped at an archway, which could have been any archway for all that Regina would have been capable of retracing her steps. The door was propped wide open to display a stone courtyard with ivy on the walls and a quietly burbling fountain surrounded by flower beds.

"Anyone with any sense who comes with Storybrooke knows not to stop," she said and extended her hand, smile growing wider at Regina's huff. "I'm Emma, by the way. I can see you're going to be... interesting to have here."

Regina crossed her arms, stubborn to the core over her sense of insult, and simply stared at the girl until she dropped her hand again.

"Rightio, then," she said, though her smile didn't falter. "The Headmistress is through there, I guess I'll see you in around sometime."

And with that, Emma stuck her hand back in her pocket, and turned back the way they had come.

"Wait," Regina called after her. " _What about my bags_?"

But Emma only gave a jaunty wave without looking back.

*

It was a few days before Regina saw Emma again, days filled with the whirlwind of new classes, exceptionally strange teachers, and classmates who pulled pranks and skipped their lessons to go fight in the woods with swords of all things.

Regina found it all incredibly undignified, and not at all what she had expected her mother to want for her. But when she tried to call home, she was told that Storybrooke didn't even have a phone to connect it to the outside world.

So it felt a little like she was doomed to dodge sparring classmates and wander a seemingly endless treeline forever. Not that Regina was inclined to overdramatics, of course.

And so, just as her days were starting to bleed into an odd sort of routine, she finally ran into Emma again.

"Howdy!" 

The voice seemed to come from above, and Regina threw a hand up above her head as she followed the sound, expecting a rogue attack from a classmate with a sharp weapon. They seemed to love sneaking up on others unaware, much to Regina's dismay. 

"Oh, don't worry," the voice continued, followed by a rustle and the thump of feet hitting the ground. "I'm not looking for a skirmish."

Regina warily lowered her arm as she watched Emma emerge from behind her tree, a smirk on her face. "And why should I believe you?"

Emma just laughed delightedly, jolting Regina momentarily back to the day she arrived with the sound.

Regina raised her eyebrows when she received no proper response, and Emma shrugged one shoulder lazily.

"Not really my thing to take advantage of unwitting bystanders. Doesn't seem right somehow."

Regina gave a haughty sniff. "Well, that doesn't seem to stop the vagrants you call classmates."

"I'm not just any vagrant, though," she whispered with a wink and another wide grin. She leaned in close as she said it, until Regina found herself swaying in her direction, and then straightened up with a snap. "Well come on then!"

"... come on _where_ , exactly?"

"You'll see!" Emma practically bounced as she turned and flung herself back into the tree line. "I promise it'll be worth your while," her voice came again, fainter this time, when Regina didn't immediately follow.

Somehow then it came to be that Regina ended up skipping French class (and math, and world history) with a sigh and a huff, and found herself trailing after Emma Swan once more despite herself.

*

They passed the term in much the same fashion. Regina's days were comprised of dribs and drabs of rude teenagers and slightly scary adults in strange get ups and with strange ideas, followed by breaking up the humdrum of everyday life at Storybrooke by going into the woods with Emma.

Emma who didn't seem to attend any classes, or sleep in any dorms. Emma who would show up suddenly to scatter packs of Regina's classmates out for a laugh or engaged in some sort of medieval practice that she didn't understand. Emma who had a knack for appearing right when Regina needed her, knocking on her window at the end of a long day or dropping out of a tree when she needed an excuse to skip.

"Do you even go here?" Regina had asked once, confused and bubbling over with frustration at Emma's playful evasions. "Are you squatting on the school grounds or something?"

"Storybrooke's my home," was all that Emma had replied. "I belong here."

*

"I don't want to go home. I want to stay here forever, away from my mother and the whole stupid world." _I want to stay here with you_.

"Why don't you then?"

Regina had scoffed. "My family would never allow it."

*

The last week before holidays commenced, Emma Swan seemed to disappear from the grounds completely. Not just her usual disappearing acts either, flitting in and out at will. Regina starting imagining messy blonde hair and assessing eyes around every corner, but no matter how hard or how high she looked, Emma was never there.

Regina sulked. She didn't like to admit, but she sulked, right up until her last day when her hurt turned into a quietly blazing fury.

Professor Stiltskin's eyebrows nearly raised off his face when she turned up to his final lesson for lack of anything better to do, sitting in the back so quietly she might not have even been there. She stabbed her pencil into the wood of her desk viciously until it splintered into shards in her hand, and everyone seated near her swallowed their curiosity and turned back away. Then she sat and glared out the window at the sun, and all the general cheeriness of the outside world.

Trees swayed gently as she pulled her bags along the path outside her dorm, and she could have sworn she even saw small woodland animals bounding about in the grass. She contemplated kicking them as she went.

All the other students gathered around the side entrance to the main building, out of sight of the road, were chattering and gossiping amongst themselves and making no apparent sign of leaving. But Regina refused to envy them. She held her head and her bags high, and swept around their outskirts and buttresses of the castle until their chattering faded away and the road came into her line of sight.

It was just as long and winding as the first time she had walked in, only this time the dust seemed to get into her clothes and her eyes much easier, and the walk felt eternal in the shade of the woods. She walked around bend after bend until the road just... stopped.

Regina stared at the unbroken line of trees, tall and thick and gnarled, crossing her past. Confused, she dropped her bag and walked back around the last bend, but there was no wrong turn she could have taken.

Slowly, Regina wandered back to stand beside her suitcase, at a loss.

"Hey," a quiet voice broke Regina's staring contest with the forest.

Emma's voice made Regina start, nearly tripping over her suitcase in the process.

"Emma? What are you... Where have you been?" She could see twigs in Emma's hair, and she looked tired and distinctly ragged, but not unhappy. Not that Emma ever looked deeply unhappy for very long.

"I thought I'd keep busy with something important. So I grew the forest for you."

"You what?" Regina practically squarked. "That's impossible. _What do you mean you grew the forest?_ "

"I made it grow. For you, so you wouldn't have to leave" Emma continued, and then leant down. Extending her hand till it hovered just above the dirt, she hummed something indistinct under her breath.

"This is ridiculous, the road can't be far, it's hardly been decades upon decades for gods sake"

Emma's only reply was to continue humming to herself, but Regina found herself faltering anyway. Underneath her hand, the dirt was stirring.

"Emma... Emma, what did you do with the... road..."

Then all of a sudden, as though the ground was gathering itself up ready to heave to, the soil broke open and something small and green and vibrant poked through.

Emma smiled and sighed, raising her face to look at Regina once more, dirt on her face and twigs in her hair and still oh so happy.

"I grew the forest," she said once again. "You know what I mean."

The little green shoot grew rapidly under Regina's astonished gaze, and Emma slowly stood again as it rised, raising her hand above it until it shot past her, the tallest and thinnest and _fastest_ sapling Regina had ever seen in her life.

"You have to know what I mean, right?" Emma turned away from the tree, but not dropping her hand, instead extending it to gently touch Regina's arm. "You can be safe here now, with us, where you belong."

Regina blinked, startled. "How can I possibly belong among this -" she gestured to the still growing sapling, helpless and lost for words.

"I'll tell you," Emma said, her hand moving up Regina's arm to her shoulder; cupping the side of her neck, then her cheek. "You'll see, you should never have been anywhere other than here to begin with," she said softly, and when Regina turned her head towards her, eyes wide with wonder, Emma sealed her words with a kiss.


End file.
